My life has changed dramatically since May, but I am trying to keep a good name on it. I need about 4 more hours in my day, and things keep dropping off my list. It is funny what becomes more important as you prioritize your time in life…

“And we laugh, and we cry
And we recited sacred text
And we rose and we fell
And then we said, okay what’s next?”

This is my soundtrack of the weekend, I need to see this band live soon, always a great time!

Until then, I frantically study drugs’ effect on neurotransmitters and try to keep it all straight, with a brain that may or may not have used drugs that affected my neurotransmitters many years ago.
Life is fucking weird, dude.

My first order of business today was to look up at the sky. There was a sun peeking out of the clouds. The dreary weather can do one of two things to me.

It can make me go a little “Nazareth”. If you don’t know what going “Nazareth” is, then you have never broken up with someone and went driving around in the pouring down rain, wallowing in your own emptiness. I do not have the time or the bandwidth to explain how damn hot this lead singer is. I am sure that sweaty embroidered blouse smells as delicious as every depressing high school relationship I ever had! We are not going to talk about the drummer, either.

Sometimes, I listen to this song because it is SO depressing that it flips my mood into giggly. This song by the Swans has the same effect. Incidentally, the newest Swans album is UNREAL and needs to be played more. But I don’t have time to go on about that, either.

If a million rainy days in a row don’t make me go “Nazareth” then they have another effect. They make me feel fancy and french. I have never been to France. I imagine it is always rainy. And fancy! Maybe because the only thing I know about France came from French New Wave Films and Pepe Le Pew Cartoons. I lived with a girl from France one summer, she didn’t speak much English, I spoke NO French. Besides the fact that she hated the smell of bacon cooking, it may have been my best relationship ever. I don’t have time to explain that either.

I have to be on my way now! BECAUSE, today I am sewing a Robe. It gets chilly on Willie Nelson’s tour bus, so it is a mandatory item! The best part is that it will have skulls on it and two pockets for 2 happy beers! Happy Thrush-day everybody!

This weekend, we saw this Ansel Adams display. What an amazing collection. Here are some of the highlights! It was at the EIU gallery, in Charleston, Illinois. I am always so pleased to see a large famous bodies of work in the midwest.

I always try and write the date on things, but yesterday I came across a notebook with some writings and drawings in it, no date.

I remember staring at one too many, “Home is where the Heart is” decorations and being inspired to write this, I know it was a sunny afternoon, in the summer.

On What Defines Home.

Home means pets, gardens, and children leaving marbles scattered out on the front sidewalk. Old records are spinning, Rose Tattoo upstairs, and Neil Young downstairs, and cd’s are blaring in the kitchen, maybe pop music or gangster rap. We walk or drive back and forth to my folks house for evening swims and beers. I float on my back in the pool and look at the same sky that has been staring back at me, since that pool went into the ground. To the right is the tree top shaped like a turkey, and to the left is the garage roof my brother used to jump off of. If you are there at dusk and you sit very still, you can see the bats come out of the trees. Sit even stiller and you can watch them take a drink out of the pool.

Home is cold beers, mexican cokes, projects get finished and even more get started. Early in the morning, I take a cup of coffee up to the tree house with a cookbook to read, formulating a plan. the deck is cluttered with remnants of parties of the past, I can still hear our conversations. I can hear the laughter of all the people who visit. On one side of the house poison ivy grows on the ground, Cannas and Sunflowers try to rise above it all in the shade.

Home is where sun, stillness, and a soft intermittent breeze set the playlist of your life. Childhood, adulthood, dreams all dance through my thoughts, while I breathe deeply. I imagine that my home smells like new leather, cigarette smoke, Jack Daniels, vanilla. I know this isn’t true, but when I look at it, those smells come to mind. Inside three people, 3 cats, and one dog begin to stir and I know that this phase of home now will someday be a very pleasant memory.